از تحقیق تا کاربرد از طریق مشاوره و برگشت مجدد: بررسی 14 سال تحقیقات موردی کاربردی

The article will examine an extended case study (over 14 years) of the challenges of operating a mode 2 academic research project (which generated a unique diagnostic tool for use in business to business relationships) and then of converting academic theory into a practical application which has been used successfully in over 150 companies. The research process will be discussed and the difficulties of managing the operational management agendas along with the need to do rigorous academic work will be examined.

The case traces the development of a stream of activity that is at the boundary between academic and commercial activity. That the activity is still important says something about the scope of the initial vision and a lot about the determination of a number of key players to pursue that vision and enhance and extend it. What drives those key individuals will be discussed but the perceptions belong to only one of them. Occupying the hybrid ground is a challenge that will not be for everyone, nor should it be, but this author believes that in an applied area of academic research such as management, to do otherwise runs the risk of creating output of value in one schema as an intellectual exercise but is largely irrelevant to the practitioner one. It does raise questions about the academic system and in particular its internal measurement processes. It is to provoke debate about these issues that the case is presented.

There is much that can be gained from a hybrid life but the challenges are significant and increasing. This is perhaps only an issue at the ‘lower’ levels of the academic hierarchy since the major academics will be readily recognised to have a life outside of the field of academic publication and speaking only to those who understand the academic ways. It does perhaps takes a special kind of ability to do as Gary Hamel has done: …a well-meaning professor took me aside and gave me some advice: ‘Gary, if you want to get ahead in the world of academia, spend the first few years of your career extending an already well-developed theory. Find a generally accepted paradigm and apply it in some new context.’ He went on: ‘The next step is to write a string of articles for refereed journals.’ This he assured me, was the surest route to tenure. ‘When you’ve accumulated enough gray hair, then you can strike off into new territory. By then you will have earned the right to create new theory.’ Largely ignoring this advice he later decided that he ‘..was more and more interested in helping companies invent the new management practices that would be critical to success in the new economy’(Hamel, 2000).